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I took it out for the maiden brushless run today! To sum up how that run went:

11/2/2008 OW - My turnbuckle, I need that!

See, I have a bit of a new problem. It seems that since I introduced the Sidewinder, THE RADIO GLITCHES LIKE CRAZY. The thing went out of control on me! At least the flying cartwheel that did it in was rather fantastic to watch

I gooped up my transmission with a ton of white lithium grease. I don't know what else to do at this point! After the brushless purchase, I definitely don't have the cash for DSM right now. Will have to research some to see if others have this problem...

Nice carnage! Unfortunately,the only thing that will probably stop the radio problen is to go DSM.It's a kinda costly investment,but it is a nice way to protect your tuck from having a mind of it's own.I have a feeling those cvd's are gonna start giving you problems next.Mine didn't like when I introduced them to the brushless motor .I've been running stock shafts with steel outputs ever since and have had no issues at all.

Nice carnage! Unfortunately,the only thing that will probably stop the radio problen is to go DSM.It's a kinda costly investment,but it is a nice way to protect your tuck from having a mind of it's own.I have a feeling those cvd's are gonna start giving you problems next.Mine didn't like when I introduced them to the brushless motor .I've been running stock shafts with steel outputs ever since and have had no issues at all.

Believe me, they already are! I sheared two pins so far, and at the point when I broke the turnbuckle, the output yokes seem to wobble quite a bit. Need to pick up some new rear axle stubs so I can go back to stock.

Wow, can't believe two weeks went by since my last run. I invested a ton of money in this thing, so I couldn't very well let it sit there useless with a glitchy AM radio. At the same time, I just couldn't swing the cash for a DSM setup.

After a LOT of scouring the net, I finally found a steal of a deal on a DX2. I got it cheap cause the antenna is epoxied-on

Should come within the week, then I just need to hit the LHS for a replacement turnbuckle. Man, my wallet really doesn't like me right now.

Of course, I'm pretty sure that the CVDs will fail within 3 minutes on my first run out, so I better whip up a parts order to get back to stock half shafts..

Man, I hear that loud and clear. I bought two XL-5s and two 12 turn Titans for our Hawk IIs and as luck would have it,only got one working speedo and one working motor.So I installed them in my wife's Hawk and got two packs into the first outing and chewed a few teeth off of the spur gear. Now I'm waiting for the new gears to arrive at the LHS.
Next mission is to send the waterproof XL-5 to Traxxas for repair or replacement and scrounge up the cash to replace the DOA 12 turn Titan.

All this while trying to finish the build on my wife's first nitro rig[1.5 T-Maxx] and finish building her Sand Scorcher and trying to scrounge up the parts I need to build my E- Maxx Crawler project.Plus the usual up-grades for my Super Clod,fuel for my Mammoth ST,etc..... So my wallet and I haven't been on speaking terms for weeks. Okay,make that years.

Thank You DSM

I do believe my LS-II parts-tweaking journey has reached its end, at long last. First, an aesthetic change. Thanks to a freebie from Mopar Marv, the transmission case is now a nice stealthy black. Next, I swapped out the TQ radio for a DX2 system. Finally, I switched back to stock half-shafts, as my CVDs were on the brink of failing.

11/23/2008 Configuration final - ship it! - The Sidewinder 5700 and SR3000 make a perfect pair, and stock half shafts handle power delivery. Dirt not included.

Fortune smiled upon me (or something), as I snagged a vintage DX2/SR3000 for $70 shipped. This was just the thing to rid of the ghost in the machine. I would say that I'm finally in control of 'er, but honestly...with 5700KV, I'm not so sure that I believe that

The result: MY FIRST RUN WHERE NOTHING BROKE!%*@#!)

...OK, so technically I lost a screw that was holding up a turnbuckle about 2 minutes before the battery was totally drained, but we're gonna ignore that

I was solo today, and decided to try my hand at a couple crappy cell phone pictures (while I was driving!). Don't expect Ansel Adams here..

11/23/2008 The ring of....dirt - Gettin' dizzy in the dirt

11/23/2008 Blazing a trail - Who needs NOS to run the 9s?

I'm glad I did my homework, because the 5700Kv Sidewinder powered by 6 cell NiMH feels like the perfect balance of weight, power, and runtime. It's scary powerful, but just below the point of unassisted wheelies - exactly what I was going for. She really keeps you awake, though, because the slightest bit of over-eagerness into a turn, and all of a sudden you have airborne acrobatics worthy of the Olympics. And this is off-road - I haven't even tried on pavement yet!

Can't wait to try it at the local indoor dirt track. The DX2 and programmable ESC combo will be especially handy, as I expect I'm going to have to dial in all this power to keep it under control.

Next up - I have a rustler body waiting, just need to paint it and drill new front mounting holes. Also, will get a video and better still pics next chance I get!

...And a great big Thank You for letting the folks know about the transmission case. It is nice to be recognized for helping a fellow Traxxas fan with a project.

Wow, you give me a freebie, and then thank me?? What a guy Seriously though, it was much appreciated.

Originally Posted by MOPAR MARV

With the LS-2 nearly finished now, does this mean we can expect a Hawk 2 resto thread soon? I'm just itching to see that minty body painted and put to use.

After the Turkey Day carnage, I have quite a busy December booked up - so I hope I can squeeze in some build / run time before there's snow everywhere! Else I might be tempted to buy a waterproof revo or something

I do indeed want to start on the Hawk II rebuild soon. I'm really amused that I set out to simply upgrade my existing vehicle, and somehow ended up with 99% of the parts needed to rebuild what I started with!!! By the way Marv, the black transmission case is partly making it possible, because it freed up the beige one to go back to the Hawk. My other spare turned out to be damaged!

...
Hopefully I will score a traxxas hawk tomorrow if no one buys before I get to it.

If I get it I will convert is to a LS-II also.

Go for it! If you see a "needs work" ls-ii or bunch of parts for sale, jump on it. Lower and upper chassis, steering, and battery box parts are all tough to find these days. Just be sure to post progress!

Originally Posted by twistedtmaxx

I wonder what i could turn my spotless bullet into
great build

Thanks! I've been immersed in stadium trucks, so I'm actually kinda curious how different a similar conversion on the buggy side of things would be.

After some wintry mix and rain yesterday, things warmed-up a bit today. I took my LS-II out to get dirty! My fiancee Val was kind enough to snap a couple pics with her DSLR.

12/01/2008 Dirty Girl - Guess I oughta get a body on here, huh?

12/01/2008 Blimey, that's grimey! - If you couldn't tell, I'm not one for keeping shelf queens

It was a fantastic but tense run at a local park. There were puddles everywhere!

In other news it seems my cursed streak continues. No, nothing broke on the truck - this time, my battery charger, of all things, is on the fritz! Quite simply, the LED blinks red no matter what I do (have a battery plugged-in, not plugged-in, put charger in low current mode, etc). It's a rather inexpensive model, granted - but I just bought the thing!

Time for me to research some chargers. In the meantime, the LS-II is benched, cause my batteries are dead as doorknobs.

Mission Accomplished!

I finished up the body the other day, so figured I would post on the completed product. This is a stock Rustler body, painted with Tamiya gunmetal gray metallic. The rear mount didn't need any modification, but I had to drill two new holes for the fronts.

12/23/2008 ACTUALLY Finished - Yeah, so this time, it's official

12/23/2008 Reverted Rear - Went back to the Alias tires, which serve me better for bashing

12/23/2008 Color Scheme - Gunmetal gray amidst ProGraphix gradients

She won't see the light of day for a good while though, since we got a good 20 inches of snow this past weekend. Maybe after the holidays I'll try to get a portable parts & tool kit together and hit the local indoor off-road track.

I consider this project a complete success (though my wallet might disagree)! Things veered a good bit off course from my original plan, since I originally expected that the Hawk-II and LS-II had more in common than they actually do. Instead of transforming the Hawk, what I really accomplished was closer to building a modern-day LS-II from scratch, sourcing the parts from all over the 'net. No big wonder that this project spawned a Frankenhawk as a by-product.

The resulting truck blows me away, frankly. Now that I've identified and updated problem areas, I expect that this vintage rig is anything but fragile. And of course, all of this power makes it quite the different experience from my childhood origins - but I've still got the same stupid grin on my face

Since then, I've had a little fun with my LS-II, but not enough. It culminated in a trip to Outer Banks three years ago.

I was zooming on the beach with a buddy that had a modern brushless slash. The vintage LS-II held its own as we bashed around on the sand and made make-shift jumps. Can't help but wonder how, why didn't I have someone photograph that?

As it was getting dark I made a poor decision. I encouraged a first-time driver to give it a shot on the beach. It's a forgiving environment I figured -- not much to run into, right?

Not much, except the ocean...

That fateful night I cleaned the LS-II up as well as I could, but I had clearly fried some subset of my electronics.

Fast-forward to today, and I decided to invest some money into getting the eagle back on her feet. Again.

First came troubleshooting. This turns out to have a bit of an embarrassing end to it, but I'll share my mistakes. It's all part of the journey!

I had ordered a new receiver a few years back as a starting point, but things still didn't work. Lights went on, but the transmitter wouldn't send commands. I re-mated it a dozen times, to no avail.

The epoxy-antenna special that was my transmitter had seen better days. Thankfully, since I last looked around Spektrum put out the crazy low price DX2e! No brainer, I was tired of the beat-up transmitter anyway. I ordered a DX2e and waited.

Once it came in, I hooked everything up, and ... same problem. The new radio came with a new receiver, so I tried that as well. No dice. Curses, the Sidewinder speed controller must have bit the dust... I was a little hesitant, because it was still lighting-up, and maybe I'm crazy but the flashing pattern seemed like it was indicating a problem.

Given the power requirements of this little project, the sidewinder really was the perfect little controller. I decided to get another one to replace it. Better yet, I found a sidewinder 3 at a great local hobby shop. Same thing, except water proof!

Swapped out my shiny new speed controller, aaaaand.....SAME PROBLEM.

I'll admit to a bit of swearing at this point. What didn't I swap out yet? Motor. But I had disconnected it from the speed controller and nothing seemed to change. I couldn't even get the servo to move the front tires. Could I have a bad servo? It turns out I didn't even have a spare to try it.

But then I remembered the battery. I was down to only one pack. This was a high-spec NiMH made by Tenergy. Really nice performance, but not the best quality in the world. My other Tenergy packs had long-ago died on me. They got to the point where they didn't charge properly, and I was forced to get rid of them.

My peak charger claimed that my battery was fully-charged, so I hadn't given it a second thought. I really should have though, because it claimed full charge after only a few minutes. It should have taken much longer if the pack was low on juice. With this in mind, I started charging the battery at 1/10 C instead of my normal 1 C rate. After a bit of that, I did some at 1/5 C, then 1/2 C. This time, the charger took as long as I would expect...it seemed to be bringing the battery back to life.

I popped it back into the LS-II, and voila! Everything works again. Now for all I know my original speed controller and radio might be just fine (I'll give them a test later). It's OK though -- I still have a franken-hawk that needs to get up and running. A sidewinder would drive a brushed motor just fine!

Couldn't help but notice though, this battery just didn't have the same punch it once did. What else could I do? I ordered a couple LiPos!

You could just install metal gears out of the current 2wd trans. I believe the stock diffs fit fine but the aftermarket sealed diffs require some plastic to be removed around the hole in the bottom of the case to stop the diff from rubbing. I know the FLM one does but I dont know if the one from Hot Racing will.

I'm taking it slow at the moment, picking up some new transmission parts. Looking forward to getting things back up and running!

Trust me boss yer not the only one, I haven't even looked at one of my RCs in a couple of months now. Too many "honey do" projects.
As in Honey we need a new back Deck, honey fix my new car[rusty pile of junk, lol],etc....

In the meantime I still haven't installed the new transmission that I bought for my old Dakota, last year. And my motorcycle is still sitting dead in the garage. And now its getting to be about time to winterize our house, etc.... If I ever catch up with all the stuff I need to do, it will be a miracle, lol.

7 year old thread and you're still posting in it with the same vehicle...I am very impressed, sir..very impressed!!!

Why thank you! Clearly you're an optimist. I think a pessimist might focus on the somewhat low run time to elapsed time ratio.

In other news, I have more gear arriving today -- a DX4C / SR4210. This will give me DSM-R, which should help the terrible range and occasional glitching my Spektrum gear has had thus far. It also gives me AVC, which ought to be fun to try.